Last year was big for bloggers — especially post the Julie & Julia craze — who made the transition from web blogger to published print author, but this year had fewer sucess stories.

While it's probably every blogger's dream to see their traffic and pageviews spike, have more and more readers commenting on their posts, and — the holy grail — an eventual book deal, it just can't happen for everyone.

A couple of years ago, someone in publishing told me that the whole "blog-to-cookbook" thing was over (2010 doesn't count because you have to remember that it takes much longer to publish a book than a post), but perhaps there is still hope for some promising bloggers out there.

Looking ahead to 2012, we already see Joy the Baker coming out with a book in February (Hyperion) and Sodium Girl debutingsometime in the spring (Wiley), which means that while the blog-to-cookbook trend has slowed down, it's not totally dead.

So what do you need to make it to the big time? A huge following on both your site and social media avenues (think Facebook and Twitter) is very important, and targetting a unique angle, such as a specific health concern, or perhaps low-budget dining (we've heard rumors of BrokeAssGourmet working on a cookbook), might also help elevate you to the world of the published.

What was on the docket for this year? Take a look at the eclectic list we've put together. We have Homesick Texan, healthy vegan recipes, and a baking book — hard to make a generalization about what gets you a book deal with these examples.

And you may ask, why are these the best? Well, because they are the ones that got published. If you know of any that aren't on our list, please let us know and we'll add them in (but we will have to take a look at their blog first to make sure their recipes are up to par). Happy cooking!

Congratulations to all of the bloggers who've made it to the big time — you're keeping the dream alive!